The Horror Tree Recent Markets, Articles, Interviews, and Fiction!

Articles / For Readers

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Indie Bookshelf Releases 06/13/2025

Got a book to launch, an event to promote, a kickstarter or seeking extra work/support as a result of being hit economically by life in general?

Get in touch and we’ll promote you here. The post is prepared each Tuesday for publication on Friday. Contact us via Horror Tree’s contact address or connect via Twitter or Facebook.

Click on the book covers for more information. Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page – there’s all sorts lurking in the deep.

 

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Anthology / Events / Flash / Online / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Mistletoe and Vine (Hawthorn & Ash Vol 7, 2025)

Deadline: December 31st, 2025
Payment: 0.01c per word. (between $1USD and $5USD)
Theme: Fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror (no scifi) between 100-500 words

We are seeking FANTASY, SPECULATIVE FICTION and HORROR short stories. No Science Fiction.

Mistletoe and Vine (Hawthorn & Ash Vol 7, 2025)

Past volumes are: Hawthorn & Ash 2019, Rowan & Oak 2020, Alder & Ebony 2021, Ivy & Sage 2022, Willow & Rose 2023, Holly and Broom 2024)

Word count : Between 100 and 500 words, excluding title (Maximum of 1 500 word story and 5 drabbles per author)

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Events

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Epeolatry Book Review: Midnight Streets by Phil Lecomber

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: Midnight Streets
Author: Phil Lecomber
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
Publisher: Titan Books
Publication date: 18th March, 2025

Synopsis: A pacy, evocative dark historical thriller about a working-class private detective in 1920s London’s Soho, who has grown up alongside the morally dubious characters who are key to cracking the cases he investigates, for fans of Dominic Nolan and Laura Shepherd Robinson.

 

When Cockney private detective George Harley saves a young girl’s life on a dark London night in 1929, he doesn’t realise it marks the beginning of an investigation which will change his life forever. The incendiary novel which inspired the girl’s abduction also seems to be linked to a series of grisly murders that are taking place on Harley’s patch, and though he’s delighted to be asked by Scotland Yard to help find the killer before they strike again, he could do without the local razor- and cosh-wielding mobsters thinking he’s a police informant.

 

Set during the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, Harley’s world is a far cry from the country house of an Agatha Christie whodunnit. This working-class sleuth does his ‘sherlocking’ in the frowzy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of Soho – the city’s underbelly – peopled with lowlife ponces, jaded streetwalkers, and Jewish and Maltese gangsters: a world of grubby bedsits, all-night cafés, egg and chips, and Gold Flake cigarettes.

 

Here, the midnight streets are black as pitch and, as Harley finds himself embroiled in the macabre mysteries of a city in which truth is as murky as the pea-souper smog, he begins to realise he may never find a way out.

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Articles

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Be Brave Under Threat: Wise Words from Margaret Atwood, 2025 Winner of the British Book Awards’ Freedom to Publish Award

Be Brave Under Threat: Wise Words from Margaret Atwood, 2025 Winner of the British Book Awards’ Freedom to Publish Award

 

By Melody E. McIntyre

 

As someone who grew up in Canada, I am, of course, familiar with Margaret Atwood. As one of Canada’s most prominent, well-known writers, Atwood has published 18 novels, 18 books of poetry, 11 works of non-fiction, plus multiple children’s books, short story collections, and other works. Her best known work is The Handmaid’s Tale, which has been adapted into a movie and a television show that just wrapped its final season in May 2025. Its sequel, The Testaments, released in 2019, won the Booker Prize. Throughout her career, Atwood has won many awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General’s Award, and, most recently, the Freedom to Publish Award during the 2025 British Book Awards on May 12, 2025. The British Book Awards are administered by the British trade magazine, The Bookseller, and have been handed out since 1990.

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Events / Flash / Flat Amount / Magazine / Poetry / Semipro

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Taking Submissions: Last Girls Club Fall Issue 2025 (Early)

Submission Window: July 1st – 15th, 2025
Payment: Short Story-2,500 words or less. $0.015 USD per word/$37.50 USD max, Poems-less than 200 words $10, Flash Fiction-less than a 1,000 words $0.015 USD per word/$15 USD max
Theme: Monkey’s Paw/Answered Prayers

The Last Girls Club Magazine is a quarterly feminist horror magazine that publishes international short stories and poems from the female gaze. It is an homage to the scary comics and zines of the late 20th century.

This season’s theme is Monkey’s Paw/Answered Prayers. You’ve got everything you ever wanted and it’s awful. More tears have been shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. Show us the folly of wishes. Terrify us with consequences. Keep us up at night dreading a knock on the door or an envelope in the mail.
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Contest / Events / Flat Amount

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Taking Submissions: Sundog Literature 2025 Collaboration Contest

Deadline: July 15th – August 31st, 2025
Prizes: Winners will receive a $300 prize
Theme: Your wildest, most inventive work of any or mixed genre

A Note on Our Aesthetic

We believe there is beauty in scars on smooth skin, in the small fissures where things begin to break apart. Sundogs are not the sun itself but phantom stars appearing on the horizon, illusions produced by the play of the sun’s heat with crystals of ice. They shed their light all the same. Many are tinged with color.

We look for this same quality in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. We want writing that attempts to salvage something pure from the collision of warmth and cold, that says what it can about the world it finds itself in. We seek a diversity of voices speaking from visceral, lived experience. We like truth we can stare at until our eyes water, words so carefully chosen we want to reread them as soon as we have finished.

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Articles

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Writing Prompt Wednesdays: When Clowns Laugh

Writing Prompt Wednesdays: When Clowns Laugh

Welcome to “Writing Prompt Wednesdays,” a haven where your imagination can roam free in the realms of speculative fiction. As we embark on this weekly journey, it’s thrilling to think about the untold stories waiting to be penned in the domains of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Whether you’re a seasoned author or a budding wordsmith, these prompts are your gateway to unexplored worlds and untapped potentials.

Every Wednesday, we’ll serve up a fresh, thought-provoking prompt designed to ignite your creative spark and challenge your storytelling prowess. Think of these prompts as a key, unlocking the doors to uncharted territories where your creativity is the only limit. From eerie, shadow-laden corridors of Gothic horror to the farthest reaches of interstellar space, and the mystical depths of high fantasy, our prompts are a kaleidoscope of possibilities.

Remember, there’s no right or wrong way to approach these prompts. They are mere stepping stones, guiding you towards the vast landscapes of your imagination. Use them to break free from writer’s block, to experiment with new ideas, or simply as a fun exercise to keep your writing skills sharp.

This week’s writing prompt:

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